Sit up with the soles of your feet flat on the floor. Hook your hands behind your hamstrings and lean back slowly until you are balancing up on your sit bones. Lift your feet off of the ground and, with bent knees, raise your feet up, so they are aligned with your knees. Press your lower back in and extend your chest up to the sky. Release your hands from behind your hamstrings and reach your arms out in front of you, palms facing together. Make sure you keep pressing your shoulders down, pressing your lower back in and extending your heart up. Hold the pose for 5 breaths. Advanced practitioners can extend their legs straight, making a “V” shape.

(1) Pitch faster and throw harder
(2) Swing the bat harder and hit the ball further
(3) Steal more bases
(4) Get better jumps off the bases
(5) Explode out of the batter's box
(6) Run down more balls in the field
(7) Reach, stretch and get more of those "oh-so-close" balls
(8) React faster
(9) Have more stamina for long games and tournaments
(10) Stay healthy and avoid injuries
(11) Tolerate heat better and perform when it's really hot
(12) Practice longer without being tired or losing your focus
(13) Be much more consistent and have less "ups and downs"
(14) Get it faster when learning or refining a skill because of increased body awareness
(15) Be much more confident and feel stronger
(16) Be mentally tougher
(17) Get more extra bases when running
(18) Develop an athletic body
(19) Recover faster between innings and games
(20) Be more dominant in all aspects of the game

Don't you think it's time to be much more serious about your conditioning and train like the best players in the world do?

They’re called cutesy names such as muffin tops and love handles, but let’s
face it, no one loves the roll of flab that pops over the waistband of your
jeans and ruins the sleek line of fitness clothes, clingy sweaters, and
tailored shirts.

“Love handles are one of the most common reasons people exercise and hire a personal
trainer,” observes certified trainer Jason Keigher
CSCS, CPT, who works with clients in New York City. It’s often after an ab workout consisting of thousands of crunches that
frustration finally leads people to get help from a fitness
pro.

“Most people think that doing crunches will get rid of love
handles, but they are misinformed,” Keigher says.
When done properly, crunches do tone muscles, but the problem is, love handles don’t contain an ounce of muscle. They're
fat, and to burn fat you need a healthy diet and a rigorous cardiovascular
program, he explains.

Work your body correctly, and you
will certainly see results, says Sylvia Nasser, a certified personal trainer on
Long Island, N.Y. Read on to learn how to trim the fat.

A great softball players needs a strong group of core muscles. These muscles are used in every aspect of the game for a player. The core muscles are the muscle in and around the belly button.

The following video is a simple 10 minute series of core exercises. Do them every day until there seems to be no challenge from them. Once you reach that point, you still need to keep focus on your core muscles but with different exercises and more of an every other day routine.

Tonight, I'm going to my sister's place. My mom will her special halloween dish and then, we're going trick or treat with all the kids (i got 6 nieces and nephews under the age of 9) while my mom stays behind and opens the door and gives treats to little monsters and princesses. It's our family tradition. I'm really looking forward to it. It's always fun!

Let's talk about softball training for a minute. I don't want to ''scare'' you but if you're not doing any core training, you're shooting yourself in the foot.